Requiem of the Sith
by Spark Vallen
Summary: Featuring original characters in the EU timeline, Jedi have a showdown with a nefarious Sith!


_Obligatory disclaimers: I only play in Lucas' sand box. I own nothing save for the original characters. :)_

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**Star Wars: Reqiuem of the Sith**

_With the defeat of Lady Raefen over the planet_

_EARTH, peace and prosperity had been_

_restored to the galaxy…_

_The trainee Jedi responsible for victory over_

_Lady Raefen have moved on to new missions_

_and new challenges, many remaining_

_guardians of peace and justice…_

_A threat looms over this momentary peace._

_Whether a familiar or new evil, this darkness_

_could tip the scales for the galaxy, _

_leading to ultimate control falling to the SITH…_

**- Tatooine -**

"You put that thing away now, or I'll put it away for you," Sapharin warned, leaning on the edge of the bar as she glared across her cantina at the Rodian who was waving around a box of death sticks.

The Rodian met her blue-eyed stare with his multi-focal one, seeing a myriad of Sapharin's through his eyes. He gazed at her intently, trying to discern just how serious she was.

"_Now_," she repeated, drawing on the Force a bit to add even more emphasis to the seriousness of her command.

You lose business if you don't let us smoke, he replied in Huttese.

"Smoke all you want. Not death sticks. Don't try to sell them in my place," she all but growled.

The dealer held up his green hands in surrender, shook his head and turned away from who he felt was a very cranky and impractical cantina owner.

Sapharin merely sighed and sat down on the stool she kept behind the bar, keeping a watchful eye on the patrons. After the battle on her original homeworld, Earth, against the Sith and her look-a-like, Lady Raefen, Sapharin had been among the Jedi trainees who had opted to discontinue formal training at Yavin IV in order to pursue a civilian's life. It had been too much for her to endure, cutting down her own likeness and that was further than she wanted to face again to continue the Jedi lifestyle. Considering herself a "friend to the Jedi," it was known in the Order that Saphy's Cantina was a safe-haven for them all. She lived Jedi-like; she simply did not live as a member of the Order.

It had been a two years since that climactic battle over her homeworld and Saph often had occasion to wonder how her friends were doing. She had settled on Tatooine, one of the more remote worlds in the galaxy, and only consider a "hot-bed" of activity if one's cooling unit went out in the bedroom. Then, you had a hot bed! That suited her just fine, warm sleeping chambers aside, though by being on Tatooine, she was quite out of contact with her friends and trainees from the Jedi Order. She had hoped they would make their way to that stretch of the Outer Rim often, but thus far, it had not been the case.

With another sigh, the former Jedi hopped off her barstool and made her way over to the Rodian whom she'd already firmly given warning. He'd been trying to be sly, keeping his back turned to the cantina owner and self-styled bouncer, making a transaction where he thought she couldn't see. Sapharin still had the Force with her, though, and that was a fact that she kept quiet.

"That's it!" she shouted, reaching up to grab him by the shoulder. "Out!"

Saphy! You break my heart! he pouted, mocking.

"That's not all that'll be broken. I warned you."

With a strength that seemed greater than her own at her diminutive height, Sapharin again used the Force to add to the exchange, shoving the Rodian toward the steps that led to the doorway and back out onto Anchorhead's sandy streets. With him yelling all the way about what a Hutt her mother and children were and Saph yelling right back at him, he was pushed out into the impossibly bright sunlight, yelping. She depressed the door's controls, _wooshing_ it shut once he was outside.

"Rodians…" she muttered under her breath, making her way back toward the bar.

"Like the way you handled him," came a voice from the table closest to the bar.

Sapharin turned on a dusty, booted heel to come face-to-face with a grizzled looking female spacer. It was no one she recognized; Anchorhead wasn't as much of a port city as Mos Eisley or even Mos Espa, but some spacers still came through.

"Why thanks," Saph said wryly. "Nothing like scum to drag Tatooine down even further, you know?"

"Mhmm. Ever think of getting out of here?" the spacer asked.

Sapharin laughed genuinely at the query. "Actually, no. Saw the galaxy and _chose _to be grounded here, if you can believe it."

The spacer drew a datacard out of her vest and passed it over to Sapharin. It was in a sleeve that identified her as Trish, a smuggler pilot. "That's got my contact info on it, if you ever change your mind. I think you'd be a good member of my crew. Think on it if you ever want some excitement and adventure."

Sapharin accepted the datacard, slipping it into a compartment on the belt that she wore. She thanked Trish, but quoted a lesson she'd learned from Yoda's holocron under her breath, "Excitement? Adventure? A Jedi craves not these things!"

Somehow, Trish caught her words even as Saph had turned away. "But you're no Jedi, are you?"

Sapharin only winked as she re-took her seat at the bar.

**- Yavin IV -**

"Again."

Gritting her teeth, shunting aside the exhaustion that was creeping over her and ignoring the perspiration that peppered her skin, Cath stepped into the training field that Kyle had established in the underground hangar bay of the Great Massassi Temple. Years earlier, X-Wings, A-Wings and Y-Wings had departed that hangar to victoriously return after destroying the first Death Star. Nowadays, the dark and empty hangar was used for Jedi training. This particular day, Kyle Katarn had set up a series of training remotes to test and train his partner, Cath Vallen, with. She had created a new lightsaber, a dual-blade style, and he wanted to ensure that she mastered the new blade before they were sent on another mission.

While what he was doing really did make perfect sense, Cath still called him an "ugly Hutt slave-driver of a trainer" as she activated the twin violet blades of her lightsaber, picking off the first two laser attacks. Katarn's laughter at the insult echoed through the darkened hangar bay. In addition to having to fend off the blaster bolts that fired on her from all directions, Cath was also supposed to traverse the bay in the dark _and _dodge the various pieces of equipment and junk Kyle had scattered about previously.

She continued muttering as she stretched out with the Force, letting its omniscient awareness wash over her. Though it was pitch in the hangar, Cath could nearly "see" clearly with the Force as her guide, picking out Kyle's many obstacles before she tripped over them. Managing the new lightsaber was a whole different matter, however. With a single blade, Cath's skill was only moderate; the decision to use a dual-blade lightsaber was questionable and even she could understand Kyle's hesitation at this choice. It felt unwieldy as she flicked her wrists to pick red bolts from the air. It would definitely take getting used to.

"This is cruel and unusual punishment!" she called out to Kyle.

His laughter echoed back to her again, making Cath smile. Her smile quickly turned into a grimace, however, as her concentration on her training slipping and she was stung by a quick barrage of red blaster bolts. She cried out as the stinging blasts dropped her to the hard duracrete floor.

At the entry point of the hangar where Kyle stood, he listened as the training remotes immediately shifted into stand-by. They were programmed to do so when they had a "successful kill," meaning that the Jedi had fallen.

"Eh, Sparky, what's the word?" he called out.

"I'm fine, and you know what that stands for in this case. Frustrated. Irritiable. Neurotic. Exhausted!" came her terse reply, doubly irked now because in addition to being taken down by the remotes, Kyle had used the nickname he'd given her which she didn't care that much for anyway.

There was a smile in his voice, she heard, as Kyle replied. "Alright. I've switched 'em off so you're safe to get up, Sparky."

Doing just that, Cath clipped her lightsaber back onto her belt and picked her way back over to the corridor's access point where Kyle waited. "Quit calling me that."

"Whatever you say, Sparky."

She punched his arm and laughed, falling in step beside him as they made their way back through the Temple's corridors. With the Horn's off on a mission, they'd agreed to sit for their two-year-old son, Jace. The Grand Master, Luke Skywalker, was good about Jedi being in relationships compared to the Old Order. However, reality was reality; it was too dangerous to take children on missions until they'd been trained in the Jedi Arts. Cath and Kyle made their way back to their quarters, where Jace had been napping while they went about their training exercise.

Their timing had been perfect. Jace was just coming around from his nap and was sitting up on the small cot that was his for his "vacation at Aunt Cath and Uncle Kyle's room."

"Miss Mommy," Jace said, folding his little arms over his chest.

Kyle arched a brow at Cath as she smiled and sat down beside Jace. "They should be on their way back here to the Temple any day now, Jace. I know your Mommy and Papa miss you too."

"Some-fins wrong," he said, his face puckering into a scowl.

Kyle turned the hard-backed chair in their quarters around and sat on it backward with his arms stretched over the back. "What's wrong, Jace?"

"Some-fin."

Cath bit her lip to stifle a giggle. In her mind's eye, she could see holodramas with semi-sentient animals that started this way. The sentient would ask the animal what happened to so-and-so and the animal would manage to articulate what was going on through non-verbal cues and behavior. She coughed and cleared her throat, knowing Dee would fillet her for ever thinking of her son as a semi-sentient animal, even as a joke.

"Bad dream, Jace?" she asked. "Or something else?"

"With Mommy an' Papa," he pouted.

Cath patted his back reassuringly, though her gaze went to Kyle. Corran and Dee had gone on a mission to Ord Mantell to break up a criminal ring. As far as such things went, it was a straight-forward mission, but such efforts could always become complicated.

"Well, your parents are the best-est of the Jedi. You know that right, Jace?" Kyle said, a small smile on his lips.

Jace nodded emphatically.

"I know you're learning how to feel with your senses and powers. But I know your parents are the best-est too," he said. "Maybe they are in a tough spot right now and that's why you feel something's wrong, but they're good Jedi. They'll be back home soon."

The little boy smiled at that, his cheeks coloring. Cath hugged him to her side and smiled up at Kyle for his little pep-talk. He'd done that far better than she could have!

**- Ord Mantell –**

"You know, you miss these moments when you're at the Academy day in and day out!" Corran shouted over the din of blasterfire.

"Yeah. Right." Dee shot her lifemate a caustic look, having no time to admire his form and precision with the silver blade as he re-directed the red blaster bolts back at their shooters.

Corran grinned, pressing their defense into an attack. He pushed ahead of Dee, taking on most of the blasterfire himself.

She grit her teeth and started with an alter trick that she'd come across in lessons on various Jedi holocrons. Dee projected an image onto the minds of the criminal scum at the opposite end of the warehouse. If they saw it right, instead of seeing Jedi Master Corran Horn, they would believe they were daring to fire on the fearsome Darth Vader. She thought that would put the fear of the gods and the Force into anyone! A yelp of fright cued her in to know that the projection had been successful.

Corran paused to catch his breath, turning to give Dee an incredulous look. "Who in the name of Vader's bones did you pick me to look like?"

"Um… well, you guessed him already," she said with a grin.

"Vader? Great." Horn rolled his eyes and beckoned her forward. "C'mon."

With the present threat removed, the two Jedi were able to move with relative ease for the moment. The cargo crates the warehouse held were stacked five and six high, each crate being roughly six feet tall. Corran and Dee navigated the labyrinth of crates from the ground-level, trying to work out the pattern to the maze. It was a curious way to set up a hideout, but they both had to admit, it was quite effective.

After having to double-back and try a different route twice, Dee started feeling impatient with the process. It was taking too long, and though her husband was the Corellian, she was finding herself muttering, "I have a bad feeling about this…"

"JUMP!" Corran roared.

Without question, Dee followed his lead, using the Force to augment her leap. It carried her five crate levels high, though she had to grasp the box's edge with her hands and claw her way to the top. Dee turned and saw that Corran had leapt to the right while she'd gone to the left. They were separated by the very chasm they'd been walking through now. Below, the same thugs they'd battled moments before came careening through the crate canyon with their weapons fully open.

The Jedi duo shrugged at each other and raced across the tops of the cargo containers in the direction the thugs had come from. They'd only have seconds to get as far ahead as they could, before the slum below realized they'd been duped again. They wanted to extend that lead as far as they could.

"Blast," Corran grunted as their foes caught on to their trick too quickly.

Erratic blasterfire erupted beneath them, aimed awkwardly at the two rushing Jedi. There was no practical way to deflect such shots so they simply ran faster, hoping to out-pace them now that they could see the entirety of the labyrinth from above. Corran leapt across the chasm to Dee's side, and together they hurried toward the den of the crime lord in question: Bohel the Hutt's.


End file.
